Ari
“Hi,” she says.
Isla doesn’t answer him. “Follow me,” she says instead. Then she takes out a key and unlocks the door. It slides to the side without a sound, revealing a winding corridor.
“Well?” she says, looking back at him with a raised eyebrow.
“What do you mean?” he asks.
She nods at the corridor behind the door. “Are you going to follow me or not?”
There is something tense in her voice that he hasn’t heard before. She’s anxious today, even though her expression seems calm. Ari stares at her, waiting for more clues, trying not to be afraid of the fact that she seems afraid.
He approaches her. She brushes his elbow with her fingertips, and he shivers at her touch. “Come on, then,” she says, and walks in.
They make their way along the curved path. The air is cooler in here, nipping at his cheeks. The walls are adorned with long monochromatic lines that make him feel as if the corridor is narrowing. His eyes turn to the circles engraved in the floor.
No, not simply circles. The patterns in the wood are alchemical formulas—resembling the bonds between elements in chemistry, yet written not with lines connecting periodic table elements but overlapping circles that form Venn-like patterns.
He has memorized hundreds of these structures in his textbooks, and his walk slows as he recognizes some of them.
“Hurry up,” Isla says in a clipped tone. He snaps out of his daze, turns his eyes away from the circles, and quickens his steps to match hers.
At last, they reach the end of the corridor, where it opens up to a room. Ari’s eyes go to the inscription in the stone above the arched entrance.
ORA ET LABORA
“Pray and work,” Isla says, noting his gaze. “This is our temple and oratory, wherein we labor.”
Ari whispers the words to himself and feels a strange sense of familiarity, as if he is back in Surat, stepping inside a temple with his family and entering a sacred space.
She guides him inside. The room is a large, circular space lined not with books but with shelves of glass equipment, boxes, and jars of liquids.
Mr. Rudra is here, seated and waiting, taking a shimmering white pill. At the sight of Ari, he tosses him a black coat.
Ari takes the coat hesitantly. “What are we doing today?”
Mr. Rudra swallows the pill with some water, smiles, and straightens.
“Your first transmutation,” he replies.
A real transmutation. Ari suddenly feels scared. “But—I haven’t finished the elemental transmutation course yet.”
“You’ve done enough coursework. It’s time we moved you into the next phase of your education. Our competitors will not be waiting around patiently for you to mature into an alchemist.”
Competitors. It is the first time Ari has considered that there might be other groups of alchemists out there, working against them. The thought sends an ominous shiver through him. Competitors—for what?
Ari looks at the round table between them as Isla sets out several objects: a glass of water and a shaker of salt; a fork and a potted plant; and a small glass jar filled with what looks like shimmering, silver-white powder, its color gleaming in certain slants of light.
It is this last thing that Ari’s eyes linger curiously on.
Even without touching it, something about the substance calls to him, as if it knows he is here.
“This will be harder than you think,” Mr. Rudra says. “So we’ll start slowly, and see how far you get.”
He sets the glass of water in front of Ari. Ari looks at the other objects, his eyes resting again on the jar of white powder.
“Don’t I need that?” he asks.
“You aren’t ready for that yet. Look only at the glass of water.”
He does so.
“Now. What is the simplest transmutation?”
“An element into itself,” Ari replies. “It’s hardly a transmutation at all.”
“Very good. It will take almost nothing from you to transmute liquid water into ice, or to steam. Basic chemistry. It’s so simple a transmutation that ordinary people can do it with a stove or freezer. But we are forgoing such helpers today, aren’t we, Ari? I want you to turn this water into ice.”
Ari stares at the glass of water and sees in his mind the geometry of overlapping circles that comprise it, a large ring for oxygen, two smaller rings for hydrogen, then billions of them joined together, their edges crossing like ripples in a pond.
But it is one thing to understand it, to visualize it in your mind’s eye—entirely another to translate that into your hands and the air.
Ari stares at it and doesn’t know what to do next.
Mr. Rudra smiles at his confusion. “Suddenly unsure how to apply the theories you’ve learned? Humility is the first gift alchemy offers us. What is the second?”
“Adaptive thinking,” Ari answers.
“All of alchemy is an adaptation, training your mind to think in as many ways as possible. The more different the materials are, the more steps the transmutation takes, and the higher the risk of you making a mistake. But this transmutation only needs one step. We’ll keep it simple, so you can work on your concentration. Can you do that, Ari?”
He nods, still staring at the water.
“Good. Now, watch.”
Mr. Rudra tilts his head at Isla. She steps forward and touches her hand to the water.
She has barely even brushed the water’s surface when Ari sees ice crusting against it, delicate, crystalline curls of frost expanding down to the bottom of the glass.
It is such an extraordinarily beautiful sight, like witnessing the secret of the universe, that for a moment, he forgets his fear.
Ari studies Isla’s hand for clues, but finds nothing.
“When transmuting an object into itself,” Isla says, “you need to look for the difference and anticipate it. Think of the lattice of elements that ice creates, how neatly they align in comparison to liquid water.”
Isla touches the ice again, and it cracks, disappearing as water fills the glass once more.
“Remember,” she says. “You have to touch the object you’re transmuting.”
“Why?” Ari asks.
“Why do you think?” Mr. Rudra says, looking Ari straight in the eye, as if this is the entire reason why he has been brought halfway across the globe to be in this place. “The transmutation needs you. The core of you. And the way we connect to the world is through our hands.”
Ari swallows, muscles rigid with anticipation.
“Chemistry is alchemy’s younger cousin,” Mr. Rudra says. “But they are not the same, are they?”
“No,” Ari murmurs.
The man nods. “In chemistry, combining a specific set of ingredients will always create the same end result, no matter who does it. Alchemy is different. My way of transmuting an object into another object will differ from yours. Why is that, Ari?”
“Because every successful alchemical reaction requires a fragment of the alchemist’s soul,” Ari answers. “And no two souls are exactly alike.”
Mr. Rudra smiles. “Correct. Every alchemical reaction contains a signature, if you will, of its alchemist. In time, you will learn to detect that signature, and even distinguish between them.” He leans against the table now and stares intently at Ari.
“I scour the world for souls like yours. It’s not easy to find those like you—most souls are simply not capable of powering an alchemical reaction.
Even with proper training, they could spend their entire lives attempting a transmutation and never succeed.
There are fewer people out there than you think who have what it takes.
” He nods for Ari to concentrate. “Now, turn your attention back to the glass.”
Ari looks back down at the water, then reaches out and touches his finger to its surface. He starts to envision the circles in his mind.
“Call on your soul.”
“How?”
“You know where it is. Only you.”
Ari shakes his head, frustrated. All he sees in himself is darkness, a physical body, nothing more. “I don’t know what I’m looking for.”
Suddenly Mr. Rudra’s hand shoots out and presses flat against Ari’s chest.
Ari gasps. Then—pain explodes in him, and he sees nothing but a flash of white.
A strangled cry breaks free from his throat.
The feeling is indescribable—as if a hand is inside his chest, squeezing his heart, pushing organs and muscle aside.
He tries to pull away, but it is as if the man’s hand is stuck to him, like opposite ends of a magnet. He can’t bear this—he’s going to die—
“I can pull it forward in you,” Mr. Rudra says. His words are firm and harsh. Ari can barely hear him through the pain. “But you have to take it. It will respond to no one else but you.”
But Ari feels like he has been set on fire, like he’s being operated on while awake, and his body tries desperately to escape.
Mr. Rudra holds him for a half-second longer.
To Ari, it feels like years. And then, at last, the man releases him.
Ari collapses backward as if he was suddenly let go.
His hand knocks the glass over, and water spills across the table.
He tumbles to the floor, hitting his back hard against the tiles.
His entire body has broken out in a sweat—he presses his fingers into his palms and feels the slickness there.
He’s trembling violently; his teeth chatter.
Over the edge of the table, Mr. Rudra watches him, his face patient and unbothered, waiting for him to stand back up. Isla has tightened her lips into a thin line, and her eyes have that tense glow about them again. She looks at Mr. Rudra, but the man shakes his head.
“Archimedes,” he snaps at Isla.
Isla comes around the table to Ari’s side, bends down, and offers him a hand.
“Come on then,” she says, her voice gentler than he’s ever heard it.
He manages to take her hand. She pulls him to his feet, then returns to her place behind the table, where she takes a pitcher and pours more water into the glass.
“The first transmutation is always the hardest,” Mr. Rudra says. “Try again.”